7 Steps to Eliminating Online Event Registration Problems

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with online event registration is not absolutely scrutinizing your form before releasing it to your audience. The only way you’ll truly know if it’ll be a seamless experience for registrants is by getting in there yourself! And if the experience isn’t seamless, there’s a good chance they’ll abandon registering altogether.

By following these seven steps, you’ll be able to identify and quickly eliminate any online event registration hiccups:

Step 1: Look over the form. Start by visually checking every detail on the form for accuracy and clarity: pricing, wording, grammar, spelling, etc. You want to make sure that instructions are clear and easy to follow. Also, ensure that the branding match your company or event website and you’re including what you need to.

Step 2: Submit test registrations. Go through the form and submit several registrations as if you were really registering. Verifying the whole process as an active user will help you catch any errors along the way. To be really thorough, choose different registration options, and try making conflicting selections or entering bad data.

Step 3: Check confirmation emails. First, make sure you receive an email to begin with! Then read through it for accuracy and clarity (again) and that all of the details are correct. One other thing to pay attention to here is how digestible the email is. You want to include important details, but don’t want to overwhelm your registrants. If it feels like too much information, remove anything not immediately important and plan to send it in a pre-event email.

Step 4: Find another tester. Get someone who’s never seen your registration form before to submit some test registrations, too. Fresh eyes will bring up issues that you might not see! Try to recruit a couple of different people, and instruct them to pay attention to the details and not just rush through it.

Step 5: Check the reporting. Now that you have a few test registrations, view the reports in your online event registration software and make sure that the way the registration data is saved will give you the reporting that you need. It’s a good idea to think of the reports you’ll want the system to generate before you launch your registration form: In some cases, it’s hard to change collected data to suit your needs once registrations start to come in.

Step 6: Check the links to the registration form. Always double check that any calls to action to register for your event (on your website, in emails, on social media, etc.) will actually take your potential registrants to the right place. You don’t want to start promoting your event, only to find out that no one is registering because your links are broken! That simple mistake can cause a huge roadblock in your event’s success.

Step 7: Ask your online event registration software provider for feedback. After all, they’re the experts! These folks have made a countless number of registration forms and should spot any potential issues right away. In fact, if you have any doubts about the best way to structure your registration form, ask them for advice before you invest too much time setting things up. A few extra minutes of planning can save hours of reworking.